


The Space Between Next Year and Now

by sterlinglee



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Fukurodani - Freeform, M/M, intense hand holding, qp if you want to read it that way
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-15
Updated: 2015-02-15
Packaged: 2018-03-12 22:27:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,440
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3357563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sterlinglee/pseuds/sterlinglee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><br/>Fukurodani loses at last year's Inter-High, and Akaashi and Bokuto close the gap a little.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>  <em>Akaashi has seen him low before, but he knows that those everyday ups and downs are nothing compared to the whiplash release of tension that’s been building ever since the Inter-High began.  He supposes that if he were as sensitive as Bokuto, he’d be feeling his legs betray him too.  But as it is, he just feels a dull ache, a head-swimming breathlessness that ebbs and rises on him without warning.</em><br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	The Space Between Next Year and Now

The ball slams to the floor a hairsbreadth from Komi’s desperate fingertips, and the whistle blows, and Fukurodani’s season ends with the national playoffs just out of reach. From his place by the net, Akaashi lets out a sharp breath.

Well, he thinks. Just playing for Fukurodani means he’s got it better than a lot of high school setters, and the Inter-High semifinals are a hell of a long way to go before getting knocked down. He’s only a first-year. Anyone could tell him there’s time for him yet.

In the moment that follows that thought he is ashamed. The noise of the crowd surges and draws the reserve players out onto the court, coming with set mouths and quiet words for the exhausted players. And all of a sudden they’re a crowd, hands on shoulders and forearms, hot faces, guys still struggling for breath. Bokuto looks at him and tries to force a grin but there’s no getting away from the tears running freely down his cheeks. 

He’s leaning on Sarukui, an arm slung around his fellow wing spiker’s neck like he’d rather rest there than try to walk just yet. It was the match Saturday before last, Akaashi remembers, when he first noticed the tape on the fingers of Bokuto’s right hand.

“I felt a little twinge during practice, so this is just insurance!” Bokuto had assured him when he asked. “Jeez, you spotted it right away—I wanted to get some in our colors but Coach said just use the roll he already started, can you believe? I mean I get that from a coach’s point of view but c’mon—we’re going for nationals, so it’s really a morale thing!”

Akaashi has seen him low before, but he knows that those everyday ups and downs are nothing compared to the whiplash release of tension that’s been building ever since the Inter-High began. He supposes that if he were as sensitive as Bokuto, he’d be feeling his legs betray him too. But as it is, he just feels a dull ache, a head-swimming breathlessness that ebbs and rises on him without warning. 

He doesn’t push through all the way to the center of the pack, not yet. He has even less to say than usual.

Bokuto brings his uninjured hand to his face, wiping away tears with the back of his wrist. They’re surrounded by a warm chorus of “don’t mind,” of “you did great out there,” and of the least comforting thing anyone can say after a loss: “there’s always next year.” It’s when Akaashi gives up his place on the court and lets the others move him along that he sees the miracle happen.

Bokuto doesn’t shrug off Saru’s arm, but he draws himself up under it, and his focus turns. One moment he’s far away and tensed inward as if in anticipation of a blow. In the next, he’s raising his head and forcing a smile for their captain, fingers clenching and unclenching where they’re slung to the side of Saru’s neck. His face is very red, but his eyes are clear. 

Bokuto runs hot, with plenty of backfires and flare-ups, but he repays their trust in every game with his willingness to jump, to keep his voice high. In practice and in matches and in anything really, from snack runs to gym cleanup, he has the luxury of letting his moods run their course, and the rest of them rally to hold it together. But this is Bokuto paying the debt in a different way.

He will not let his tears fall too far, and by this they will understand that he has taken their efforts to heart and is prepared to go on fighting. A dart of warmth pierces the queasy emptiness in Akaashi’s stomach. He turns away from Bokuto’s grin, which is making him too warm all of a sudden.

On the bus ride home, no one seems able to hold a conversation. Their managers are tucked side by side in their usual front seat with earbuds strung between them, heads close. Bokuto’s passed out with his head pillowed on at least three of his teammates’ balled-up jackets, no longer able to hold himself taut in expectation, no longer having to. Akaashi leans back in his seat, watching the early evening road fleeting past behind his suspended reflection. He falls asleep at a traffic light that seems to last for hours.

Bokuto shakes him awake when they pull into the school lot—piling off the bus in the near-dark, it’s a little easier to breathe. They haul their things back in quickly, too tired to waste time.

Konoha bangs his shin on an open locker door while they’re getting ready to leave. On another day he might have shaken it off, but today he snarls with pain and slams the door back, bouncing it hard on its hinges. The sound draws their eyes halfway in the quiet room. As one, they catch themselves before they can turn to look fully at the way he’s poking at his leg, maybe glad for an excuse to stop acting like everything’s okay.

Akaashi takes his time. He can hear the others heading out in twos and threes. When he turns from his locker, Bokuto is still there on the bench, impossible to ignore as he unwinds the tape from his hands in the low light. He’s picking mechanically at the seams, mouth set in a precarious line, head held low.

Nobody’s voice is raised, nothing is on fire. Akaashi can feel the air in the room all shuddering and hair-trigger tense as it rests on Bokuto’s shoulders.  


He doesn’t know what he might say in a situation like this, so he goes and sits at Bokuto’s side. Bokuto’s breath is doing something hiccupy and strange, and Akaashi realizes that in half a breath he’s going to be the only other person here when Bokuto starts to cry.

A grubby curl of athletic tape bobs between the index and ring fingers of Bokuto’s right hand, haphazardly undone. Akaashi scoots closer, until there’s less than a handspan, less than the distance that separates victory and defeat, between them. He takes Bokuto’s big, hot, calloused hands in his own.  


“Don’t mind,” he says.  


Bokuto is very still as Akaashi starts to unwind the tape. Even tender shock can only hold him for so long, though. He draws a deep shaky breath and lets it go as a laugh, shoulders curving forward and head dropping—his hands rising in Akaashi’s grasp like he’s offering them up for Akaashi to make something of. 

“You must think your ace is pretty lame, hey,” he gasps, and Akaashi’s blank reproving look sends him into a new bout of tearful laughter. “I—s-sorry, I just—” he doesn’t seem to know what comes after that. 

Akaashi piles the spent tape neatly on the end of the bench. The spread of Bokuto’s palm is heavy and deeply creased, his nails short and blunt. He lets Akaashi grip and turn his hands, barely making an effort to support their weight. Akaashi wonders if this makes them something different now. If he wants that. 

“Captain talked t’me,” Bokuto says suddenly, his voice still a little thick. “When we were getting off the bus. Reins are mine, next season out. I guess—next practice, they’ll make the announcement.” His breath hitches and he blinks rapidly, something between a smile and a cringe of embarrassment curling across his face. “Pretty awesome, hey?”

“Good,” Akaashi wrinkles his nose in frustration at the awkwardness of his reply. “That’s good.”

“I get last say on vice-captain.”

Akaashi waits.

“Next year’s gonna be awesome,” Bokuto says, butting up against his shoulder. “You and me? We’re gonna kick it in the ass.”

Akaashi starts at the sudden contact, and he’s too flustered for a good comeback but he hopes his stare says all it needs to about that particular word choice. Bokuto glances up at him and laughs, then, loud and unabashed. When he pulls away, Akaashi misses the warm heft of him immediately.  


“That’s your yes, then, hey? I shoulda guessed—no grateful tears? Can’t you show a guy some mercy?”  


Akaashi rolls his eyes, grateful to be back on familiar ground. “Mercy isn’t going to help us kick it in the ass,” he says blandly—as cutting and assured as he knows how to be. After a blink, Bokuto lights up in that thoughtless, spectacular way of his, his joy rising like heat. When he rises from the bench, Akaashi follows. They head out the door into the new warm night together.

**Author's Note:**

> super intense platonic contact bokuakas are my favorite kind tbh


End file.
